Sitting on her bed with her back to her door Robbie played her guitar, looking down at the sheet music on the floor to the song she’d been working on for months. The one that she’d just written the lyrics too a couple nights ago; the last night that she’d been home when her father had been up to his old tricks. “Cause I’m feeling nervous, trying to be so perfect, cause I know you’re worth it, you’re worth it, yeah…”
”Robyn Elizabeth Ann you open this door right now!”
Looking over her shoulder Robyn watched as the door to her room shook at each bang her fathers fist made on the wood, flinching each time she’d see it bend at the force even though she knew it wasn’t going to give. Clearing her throat her hands went back to strumming the guitar strings, playing and singing louder in hopes to drown out the drunks yelling, “If I could say what I wanna say, I’d say I wanna blow you away, Be with you every night, am I squeezing you to tight…”
”Don’t make me break this down…I will. I’m your father god damnit!”
Where was her sister? Robbie had come home after school to get the girl, Xavier having invited them both over to dinner so that he could meet the one person she’d trusted with such a huge secret. Much to her surprise her stepsibling hadn’t been around. Neither has her stepmother or her stepbrother…just her father. Shit faced as ever. And when he was this way, he reverted back to things a father shouldn’t ever want to be doing. Closing her eyes she swallowed hard, looking around her room, as the yelling got louder from the other side of her door. Spotting her amp she took off the acoustic guitar, laying it across her bed and moving to the electric one on the older side of the room to plug it in and turn it up as loud as she could. Music was her way out, it always had been, and it always would be. Right now this was the best thing she could be doing, singing the song she’d written the other night when not sleeping. The song for the man she couldn’t call to come to her rescue tonight. “If I could say what I wanna see, I’d wanna see you go down on one knee, marry me today, Guess I’m wishing my life away…With these things I’ll never say…”
”The minute I get into that room that fucking thing is going to be thrown out your fucking window. You can’t ignore me Robyn! You can’t stay in there forever!”
Why hadn’t she ever fought for the phone in her room? Oh. Right. It was because of her cell phone that was currently sitting outside her bedroom door on the floor, the one that she’d been fumbling with while trying to get the key for her door. She shouldn’t have had to run up two flights of stairs away from her father. And she shouldn’t have to lock her bedroom door every time she leaves the house out of fear that he might go through her shit or be waiting for her or her sister. The thoughts made her angry. The angrier she got the louder her voice was and the more she was able to drown him out. For a moment things were okay, as okay they could be until….
”Xavier!? Who the fuck is Xavier? He the guy you’re off screwing at all hours of the fucking night when you’re supposed to be home?”
“Oh shit…” Those were the only words that could come out of her mouth as the familiar sound of her boyfriends ring tone faintly came through the door. Taking off the instrument she walked over to the door, running her hands through her hair as she tried to figure out what to do. Opening her door to get the phone from him wasn’t an option. Neither was telling him to leave it alone because that would only prompt him to want to answer it and figure out why she didn’t want him talking to whoever Xavier was. Worst of all she knew why he was calling. She and her sister were supposed to have been at his place half an hour ago. Who knew what her boyfriend was thinking. Probably that she was standing him up, that she didn’t want him to meet anyone she cared about at all. That was the farthest thing from the truth. Robbie wanted to scream at the top of her lungs that Xavier was the best thing that ever happened to her…
“What a fucking slut. My daughters a whore… Does he pay you well for your services?”
There was a loud smashing sound and then her entire door shook as, what seemed to be her father’s entire body, slammed into it. Jumping back from the door she screeched, wondering if the door was going to hold this time around. It was bending more than it ever had before and he seemed more determined then ever to get through the wood separating them.
If you asked her for a list of things that scared her there would be one thing on the list. And that one thing was currently trying to bash in a door to get to her. Grabbing her stuffed animal off the bed, the one that her other had given her just before she’d had to move, Robbie went into her bathroom and closed the door and locked it. She hated her father. Hated him for making her have to climb into the bathtub and curl into a ball while holding onto a childhood toy to feel even remotely safe. If he got through the first door nothing would be able to stop him. The one for the bathroom was half as thick, the lock not nearly as strong. All she could hope was that someone would come home or the amount of alcohol in his system would kick in and knock him out.